By Musa Adamu
What happened on Tuesday, 31st March, 2026 during the Bauchi APC stakeholders meeting to endorse President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for second term, where unruly supporters of Senator Shehu Buba stormed the venue and attempted to disrupt the gathering, is yet another very unfortunate incident that may deepen the political scar in Bauchi. It points to the crude nature of the Senator’s supporters, and it underpins his disloyalty to the president and the APC as a political party.
President Tinubu truly wants discipline, democratic credibility, and rule-bound governance to define his golden ‘BAT’ era and for it to stand at the heart of his legacy. Then those values cannot be preached at the centre Abuja alone and ignored in the states. They must apply everywhere power is sought and exercised.
That is what makes that incident troubling, and why the case of Senator Shehu Buba cannot be dismissed as routine politics. There are numerous allegations of his direct links to bandits, allegations of using clerics to soften or deflect public outrage, allegations tied to suspected bandits and pilgrimage sponsorship, and controversies so serious they reportedly led to his removal from the Senate Committee on National Security. These are not passing controversies. They are the kind of dark and damaging suspicions that destroy public trust, erode confidence in leadership, and reduce the sacred duty of public office to a cynical contest for power. Even where unproven, allegations of this magnitude are enough to raise grave questions about judgment, credibility, and fitness for higher office.
The allegations made against Senator Shehu which. He vehemently denied all of them, despite the denials it was not deleted , all the allegations still remains in public domain, Senator Buba even raised a case where the defamators were arrested, the defamators apologised but the allegations cannot be ignored being in public domain.
This is not a minor political quarrel. It goes to the heart of what leadership should mean in Bauchi State and in Nigeria at large. At a time when Mr president is battling insurgency, banditry, terrorism, making strides against economic strain, and restoring what had been a deep crisis of confidence in public institutions, leadership cannot be reduced to ambition alone. Anyone seeking to become governor and chief security officer of a state must be able to stand before the people with moral clarity and public credibility, not under the crushing weight of serious and repeated suspicion.
Bauchi cannot be turned into a refuge for tainted ambition. It cannot become a rehabilitation ground for politicians burdened by allegations of this grave. The people of Bauchi deserve leadership that reassures, not leadership that alarms; leadership that attracts confidence, not leadership that repels it; leadership that lifts the image of the state, not leadership that burdens it with greater doubt.
And the stakes are bigger than Bauchi alone. Who Nigerians elect now reaches directly into the lives of ordinary people. Leadership choices affect inflation, investor confidence, economic stability, security, and the way Nigeria is perceived abroad. Perception is not cosmetic. Perception influences trust, and trust influences capital. When a state or a country is led by people seen as credible, disciplined, serious such as Mr President and, confidence rises. When leadership is surrounded by scandal, suspicion, and ethical darkness (such as would be the case with Senator Shehu Buba), the opposite happens. Investors hesitate. Partners grow cautious. Risk grows. And ordinary people end up paying the price.
Gone are the days when Nigeria could survive on empty claims of potential. The world is no longer impressed simply because Nigeria has oil, gas, minerals, land, or a young population. Nigerians themselves are no longer satisfied with that tired language. What matters now is substance. What matters is whether leaders can tum resources into jobs, youth into productive talent, enterprise into prosperity, and governance into results. What matters is whether Nigeria can show that its reforms are real, that its business climate is becoming credible, that its natural wealth is being turned into value. and that Nigerian innovation can compete, create, and lead.
That kind of future cannot be built on compromised leadership. It cannot be built on men whose names carry troubling questions that refuse to go away. It cannot be built on a politics that normalizes controversy and asks the public to lower its standards in the name of power. If Nigeria is to become more investable, more respected, and more secure, then it must also become more demanding about the character of those who seek to govem.
So, the question before the people of Bauchi is simple: is Senator Shehu Buba the kind of man you want to entrust with your state? Is this the kind of politics that attracts honour, stability, investment, and genuine progress to Bauchi, or the kind that deepens doubt and drags the state backward? Can a man under such dark and damaging suspicion truly claim to represent meaningful progress? Is this the kind of leadership that embodies discipline, results, democracy, and respect for the rule of law? If it is not, then silence becomes complicity, and indifference becomes a betrayal of both Bauchi’s future and the standards this era claims to defend.
This is the real test of the moment. If this golden BAT era truly means discipline, reform, democratic credibility, and rule-bound governance, then those principles must not end in Abuja. They must reach Bauchi. They must shape who is elevated, who is trusted, and who is rejected. A reform era cannot stand proudly on tarnished state-level leadership. A legacy cannot be secured by looking away from troubling questions simply because they are politically inconvenient.
Although Senator Shehu Buba has vehemently denied all these allegations in an interview with the Daily Trust newspaper of October 8, 2025. “I have always stood for peace and the welfare of our people. I deny these baseless allegations and will continue to work in favour of Bauchi South,” he assured.
The people of Bauchi must, however, decide whether they want a future built on trust or on troubling suspicion, on honour or on controversy, on real progress or on recycled ambition. Because in the end, leadership is not a slogan. It is a standard. And any man who seeks power must be strong enough to meet that standard, or honest enough to step aside.
. Musa Adamu writes this piece from Bauchi
